Advocates continue to fight to save an undocumented mother and son, arrested by ICE just one day apart from each other, from deportation to danger. High school student Diego Ismael Puma Macancela was swept up by federal immigration agents the same day of his prom, and one day after his mom Rosa’s arrest:
His cousin, Gaby Macancela, said a frightened Puma Macancela came to her Prospect Avenue apartment Wednesday night after his mother's arrest. The following morning, she said they cowered in fear in one of the bedrooms when they heard agents banging on the door of the apartment.
“Wake up, the police are here again," she said Puma Macancela told her. "They’re coming for me.”
She said her cousin eventually walked outside and was arrested.
“He’s not a criminal; he didn’t do anything bad to nobody," she said. "He was just going to school, working. He was trying to make his dreams come true for him, for his family, for us. I don’t know why. He’s just a kid.”
Both Diego and Rosa fled to the U.S/Mexico border in 2014, after escaping gang violence in their native Ecuador. Once in the U.S. they applied for asylum, and according to AM New York, Diego had been issued a work permit and driver’s license. He worked two part-time jobs at fast food restaurants, and was scheduled to graduate this summer in hopes of training to be a mechanic.
But instead, federal immigration officials decided Diego and Rosa—who according to their family members have no criminal records here in the U.S. or in Ecuador—are priorities for deportation. Today, both are sitting in a Louisiana detention facility and waiting to hear about their fates.
Because federal immigration officials have not yet ruled on their latest appeal, Diego and Rosa may not be put on the next ICE flight to Ecuador—scheduled every Friday—but advocates in their community are remaining cautious. At the very least, they hope he would be allowed to remain in the country long enough to get his diploma.
Since his arrest, Diego’s high school classmates and leaders have rallied to his defense:
Several elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey of Harrison, have intervened on the teenager's behalf and continue to lobby ICE on his behalf.
“I continue to urge ICE to allow Diego to remain in our community," Lowey said in a statement. "This terrible case is another example of President Trump’s draconian immigration enforcement priorities that are tearing apart families and threatening safety by driving wedges between local officials and immigrant communities."
"I hope ICE will approve Diego’s second request for a stay of removal before he is deported," she added.
"We have to remember Diego was a child when he arrived here in the United States," said Gossett Navarro, an organizer with the New York Immigration Coalition. "He continues to be part of a community … that has been traumatized by his detention. We often think of the effect it has on the immediate family … in Diego's case his school community was really preparing to celebrate .… they arrived to find that one of their classmates had been detained." Currently, over 22,000 people have signed a petition in support of Diego. You can add your name here.
In the past few months, Donald Trump’s deportation has arrested restaurant workers who prepared breakfast for the very ICE agents who detained them, undocumented mothers with no criminal record, and a 9/11 recovery worker who still suffers from health issues due to his patriotic work. “Bad hombres” indeed.
